- Thread starter
- #21
- May 16, 2011
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Kansaseq, I didn't see your post earlier, but I'm in for the night now, so, I thought I'd elaborate a bit.
We are just starting our homestead. Our cabin is on the wrong spot and needs to be moved 90 feet to the left. In that spot, there are a few posts in and a lot yet to go in, to fence almost an acre, in the middle of which will be our cabin. It is right now half-trailer and half-cabin, but it will be fully-cabin this year sometime.
Both my partner and I were raised in cities and have waited our whole lives to get out of them, so several years ago, when he was working three jobs and I was tending three babies by myself nearly all the time, and we were at the point where we were spending no time together and all of our money on bills, including the ones that came from making sure he could continue to do his jobs, we decided to leave. We filled a dumpster, and several peoles' cars with thrift-store give-aways, and packed what remained into a small U-Haul truck, and headed 2000 km north to a town of 200 people, at the literal end of the highway. We lived there for two years, but because it was so difficult to buy land (most of the people who own up there don't live there and it was months between conversations and negotiations- too long- and several people changed their minds after we'd made an offer), we couldn't set ourselves up the way we had hoped.
Then a friend of ours from that town came to the Yukon to check out some land, and he returned and told us that what we'd hoped for there, was actually over here. He is a very trusted friend, and began his suggestion with, "You know that I would never tell you what to do with your life, but...". So we came, and this time, because the trip was longer and we had more children and didn't want to take another truck, we sold everything we'd replaced while there, and filled a 4x8 trailer with what was left of our belongings (amazingly, we didn't leave anything of actual importance to us). This trip took 6 days with switching back and forth to drive, and only spending two nights in hotels- when our children began to complain that their backs were sore.
So we've been in the Yukon for almost three years, but in the far north for five.
I guess that's not about homesteading, but like pioneers, leaving "home" to come home, has been as much a part of the journey as setting up a pig corral and building an outdoor, insulated brooder.
Our five children are all home with us, and my partner works part-time in town while I am at home, trying to get artwork done in the midst of all of the chores and building projects we have on the go all the time. I really love it, and like my friend for whom morning sickness has been a joy after having trouble conceiving, the work is a joy to me. I love making my life.
Today I made lots of progress on my top bar hive with my 10 month old holding my shoulder and pulling the hive over and grabbing the hammer and tasting the nails and trying to taste the glue. It brought back my memories of the very same thing happening with my three yr old son when he was 10 months old, and I was building shelving and beds in the livingroom of our then cabin in the woods. There's a distinct flow to work done with babies that is so precious. The best part is that my four older children all have a building-bug, and no sooner have I begun to ask, "Would anyone..." before they're all running and shouting, "I will! I will!" It's oftentimes a challenge to find something for each of them to do- for now, while they often need supervision.
I've found that the best thing for me, is to accomplish one medium-to-major task every day, in addition to regular necessities, and this way, in a 30-day month, I've been able to cross off about twenty or so things that need to be done. There's lots of flexibility in it so that if I'm not feeling up to tearing down a wall or building a cabinet, I can take it easy and start to build a top bar hive and new feeders for my chickens who seem to be insatiable. Then I feel accomplished and not worn out, so the next day, I'm likely to be ready to tear out a wall and install a window, or dig post holes, which is also something I don't do all at once. This would drive a lot of people crazy, I know, but a main reason I have so many things going is that I just don't often have enough energy to accomplish anything big all at once. So, I dig two or three post-holes, arrange a goose pen, line up retaining boards for half the garden beds, measure out the barn area and draw up the plans, mix compost and rock dust into a few beds-worth of soil, move the window that we need installed next, saw the boards to frame it in and mark them, tidy up the off-cuts next to our work-table, and that's all for that day. It really isn't a lot with me plodding along at my pace, in between meals. I don't have any outside committments at this point, so I'm here all day anyway. I have to keep a lot on my mind all the time, and that gets tiring, but my solution becomes writing things down if I can't sleep because I don't want to forget something.
I really wanted to film our process from the raw and dire beginning, looking at the place we would be living in while transforming it, to the eventual established homestead, but I had to admit at that point that I officially already had enough to do. So, no film. But I may record our work in a book when we're all done.
We are just starting our homestead. Our cabin is on the wrong spot and needs to be moved 90 feet to the left. In that spot, there are a few posts in and a lot yet to go in, to fence almost an acre, in the middle of which will be our cabin. It is right now half-trailer and half-cabin, but it will be fully-cabin this year sometime.
Both my partner and I were raised in cities and have waited our whole lives to get out of them, so several years ago, when he was working three jobs and I was tending three babies by myself nearly all the time, and we were at the point where we were spending no time together and all of our money on bills, including the ones that came from making sure he could continue to do his jobs, we decided to leave. We filled a dumpster, and several peoles' cars with thrift-store give-aways, and packed what remained into a small U-Haul truck, and headed 2000 km north to a town of 200 people, at the literal end of the highway. We lived there for two years, but because it was so difficult to buy land (most of the people who own up there don't live there and it was months between conversations and negotiations- too long- and several people changed their minds after we'd made an offer), we couldn't set ourselves up the way we had hoped.
Then a friend of ours from that town came to the Yukon to check out some land, and he returned and told us that what we'd hoped for there, was actually over here. He is a very trusted friend, and began his suggestion with, "You know that I would never tell you what to do with your life, but...". So we came, and this time, because the trip was longer and we had more children and didn't want to take another truck, we sold everything we'd replaced while there, and filled a 4x8 trailer with what was left of our belongings (amazingly, we didn't leave anything of actual importance to us). This trip took 6 days with switching back and forth to drive, and only spending two nights in hotels- when our children began to complain that their backs were sore.
So we've been in the Yukon for almost three years, but in the far north for five.
I guess that's not about homesteading, but like pioneers, leaving "home" to come home, has been as much a part of the journey as setting up a pig corral and building an outdoor, insulated brooder.
Our five children are all home with us, and my partner works part-time in town while I am at home, trying to get artwork done in the midst of all of the chores and building projects we have on the go all the time. I really love it, and like my friend for whom morning sickness has been a joy after having trouble conceiving, the work is a joy to me. I love making my life.
Today I made lots of progress on my top bar hive with my 10 month old holding my shoulder and pulling the hive over and grabbing the hammer and tasting the nails and trying to taste the glue. It brought back my memories of the very same thing happening with my three yr old son when he was 10 months old, and I was building shelving and beds in the livingroom of our then cabin in the woods. There's a distinct flow to work done with babies that is so precious. The best part is that my four older children all have a building-bug, and no sooner have I begun to ask, "Would anyone..." before they're all running and shouting, "I will! I will!" It's oftentimes a challenge to find something for each of them to do- for now, while they often need supervision.
I've found that the best thing for me, is to accomplish one medium-to-major task every day, in addition to regular necessities, and this way, in a 30-day month, I've been able to cross off about twenty or so things that need to be done. There's lots of flexibility in it so that if I'm not feeling up to tearing down a wall or building a cabinet, I can take it easy and start to build a top bar hive and new feeders for my chickens who seem to be insatiable. Then I feel accomplished and not worn out, so the next day, I'm likely to be ready to tear out a wall and install a window, or dig post holes, which is also something I don't do all at once. This would drive a lot of people crazy, I know, but a main reason I have so many things going is that I just don't often have enough energy to accomplish anything big all at once. So, I dig two or three post-holes, arrange a goose pen, line up retaining boards for half the garden beds, measure out the barn area and draw up the plans, mix compost and rock dust into a few beds-worth of soil, move the window that we need installed next, saw the boards to frame it in and mark them, tidy up the off-cuts next to our work-table, and that's all for that day. It really isn't a lot with me plodding along at my pace, in between meals. I don't have any outside committments at this point, so I'm here all day anyway. I have to keep a lot on my mind all the time, and that gets tiring, but my solution becomes writing things down if I can't sleep because I don't want to forget something.
I really wanted to film our process from the raw and dire beginning, looking at the place we would be living in while transforming it, to the eventual established homestead, but I had to admit at that point that I officially already had enough to do. So, no film. But I may record our work in a book when we're all done.
